


lovebox

by AmberSpirit



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, kinda sad, parallels between Cole and Connor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 21:12:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15566439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmberSpirit/pseuds/AmberSpirit
Summary: Hank finds Connor’s collection of private data.





	lovebox

A year before the accident, before Hank’s whole life fell apart like a stack of empty beer cans, Cole started a small collection.

He took the empty Play-Pad box leftover from Christmas and began using it as a chest for all his favorite things. He would put in his tiny toy cars that Hank picked out from the 3D printer in town, his favorite stuffed toy rabbit, countless pictures of Saint Bernard dogs (how could a kid love an animal so slobbery was beyond Hank), and his rarest set of holo-cards. It was a complete collection of a five-year-old’s wishes and treasures. 

Hank remembered having a similar one as a kid, full of action men and comic books, and how important it was for him to keep it a secret from his parents. Hank pretended he never saw Cole’s box and if he decided to buy a Saint Bernard puppy a month later, hey that was a happy coincidence.

After the crash, after those torturous hours at the hospital, after seeing the doctor’s lips move but not hearing the words, Hank walked back to his house in a trance. His living room seemed like a dream space. Puppy Sumo greeted him with a wagging tail, running behind him to check for his smaller owner. ‘He’s not coming back’ Hank thought with numb shock ‘You’ll never greet him again.’ 

Hank walked up the stairs to Cole’s empty bedroom and reached for the treasure box peeking from beneath his bed. He stared at its contents, looking at each carefully chosen object until the bedroom was dark and Sumo was clawing at the door.

Trapped in another reality, Hank packed everything back into the box. Part of him knew that there were people he will need to talk to and things he’ll have to organize. He’ll have to take a shower, he’ll have to eat, he'll have to call his boss. But another part of him didn’t want to leave, wanted to die and rot in this bedroom. He wanted to sleep in Cole’s treasure box forever, never having to leave its confines.

It took all his remaining strength to open the door for Sumo and walk away. 

He never went near the box again. After he moved houses, it was packed away in the attic, with the rest of the things he couldn’t force himself to throw away. If he opened it again, Hank didn’t know whether he would be able to walk away a second time. 

****

“What kind of shop doesn’t have anti-malware shit for their CCTV? Just our luck.” Hank swallowed his leftover cold coffee like a shot of liquor and leaned against his desk “We didn’t even catch the sight of her face. Fuck.”

Next to him, standing with perfect posture was Connor who despite chasing the suspect through an entire shopping precinct didn’t have a single hair out of place. In comparison, Hank was drenched in cooling sweat and his knees ached to remind him that he was too old for this type of work. 

“While the recorded data is lost, lieutenant, I was still able to capture enough footage to reconstruct part of the deviant’s face even from a significant distance.” Connor smoothed down his tie, looking very pleased with himself.

“Really? Can you, I dunno, upload it to the system or something?” Hank turned on his monitor but Connor was already reaching for the tablet charging on the table.

“I can show it to you right now if you’d like.”

Connor pressed his two fingers against the touchscreen, the LED light on his temple flashing an acid yellow. Hank had seen this type of behavior in androids before, usually when they were accessing the cloud or performing some type of online payment process. The tablet turned on and an unknown set of folders appeared on the glowing screen. 

Hank squinted at the enormous collection, trying to make sense of all the strange titles and thumbnails but before he could focus, one of the folders opened and within it another one, following a remotely controlled path towards a single file.

“Please have a look.” Connor moved closer until his arm pressed against Hank’s shoulder. It took a moment for Hank to stop focusing on the insignificant body contact and pay attention to the screen.

It was the suspect they chased through the shopping mall just half an hour ago. Even from the limited angles, Connor was able to reconstruct half of her face hiding underneath the thick black hair. Perhaps their computer system would be able to work with this…

“Upload it to the-”

“-already uploaded, lieutenant” Connor cut in and was it just Hank’s imagination or was the boy acting more cocky than usual? He looked up and was met with Connor’s bright stare, aimed squarely at his face. This close, Hank couldn’t mistake that expectant expression for anything else.

“Alright, alright, good job,” he grumbled and Connor’s LED twinkled like Christmas lights. That kid probably thought he looked emotionless and professional but Hank recognized preening in any form.

“Glad to be of service.” Connor leaned over him to input the data into the system on the monitor. Hank rolled his eyes and turned back to the tablet. He rotated the partial scan a few times, trying to see whether the android looked like a model he had seen before and then exited the folder.

In front of him was a long list of meticulously organized data. From the titles it was easy to guess that this was Connor’s data storage: he had carefully numbered all the evidence in all the cases they worked in, recording both footage and sample analysis. 

The more Hank scrolled, the more footage he found; there was even a specific folder just for the interior of Hank’s car and analysis of its component. The amount of detail that was put into each file was truly incredible; it included the date it was gathered and even the amount of times it was accessed. Apparently, Connor had accessed this particular footage only two times. Hank tried to imagine a world where he wouldn’t be able to forget a single moment in his life and the idea was both comforting and horrifying.

Hank had always been aware that Connor was an android and androids had the ability to record their surroundings at all times, whether they were a nannybot or an army machine. Their owner would be usually the only one with access to the files, although lately there has been a data scare on the news involving Cyberlife potentially spying on their customers. You couldn’t trust an android- but Hank already knew that.

However, with Connor being so advanced it was easy to forget that he was bound by the same rules as the rest of his kind. As a prototype given to the police department, Connor most likely belonged to the entire precinct and therefore didn’t have a clear owner. The closest thing to that would most likely be his human partner. Did that mean that Hank had unlimited access to these files?

Discreetly checking whether Connor was still occupied with the system, Hank returned back to the tablet and browsed through the files. He didn’t know what he was looking for- his eyes went through thumbnail to thumbnail, searching for something unusual. Perhaps he was driven by the knowledge that none of the data seemed to include anything about him. Of course, Connor didn’t spend his whole time running after Hank but they did spend the majority of their days together so that meant that Connor must have some kind of a data of him. Perhaps there was a Hank folder somewhere and he just wanted to check whether there was anything embarrassing there- after all, Connor might be supplying this data to Cyberlife and it was Hank’s personal information. 

His fingers froze on the screen. There, in the primary section, was a folder labeled RESTRICTED. And in the neat little thumbnail below, Hank recognized his own face. The photo looked candid and zoomed uncomfortably close; the Hank in the picture looked like he was in the middle of telling a joke, his eyes half-lidded and mouth open. He didn’t remember making that expression anywhere near Connor. 

Hank tapped on the folder-

“Lieutenant.” A hand firmly placed itself between his finger and the touchscreen. Hank looked up; Connor was staring down at him with a blank expression. His gaze was cold and steady but the light on his temple was turning at a dizzying speed. The LED almost looked like it was throbbing under the digital strain. It was bright red.

Hank carefully moved his hand away from the tablet.

“I was just having a look.” Why did it feel like he was caught doing something obscene?

“All my activities and any relevant evidence need to be carefully documented, as per my programming. In case…” Connor’s blank features collapsed into something vulnerable “…In case I will be replaced.”

“So you’re uploading all of that stuff to Cyberlife?” Hank peered into Connor’s blinking eyes, wondering if he was recording this conversation right now. It was enough to give a guy performance anxiety- forget his yearly appraisal, Connor could appraise his performance every minute of every day.

“As per the contract Cyberlife has with Detroit Police Department, sensitive information related to cases is restricted and can only be viewed by selected personnel.”

“So that Restricted folder in there, was that…” but when Hank looked down at the tablet again, the screen was blank. Connor took it from his hand and placed it on the cluttered desk.

“The Restricted data you saw was police evidence that cannot be revealed to Cyberlife staff, compliant with the International Data Rules.”

“But since I work for the Detroit Police department, I can access it whenever I want,” Hank said. There was something odd about this whole situation. Connor was acting so defensive and his LED wouldn’t stop blinking in a panicked sequence.

“As you already have access to the evidence on the internal system, there is no need for you to review it, lieutenant,” Connor’s back was impossible straight as he seated himself on Hank’s desk, looking more mechanical than ever, “I assure you that I have uploaded all the relevant data.”

“Whatever…”Hank grumbled, deciding to let it go. For some unknown reason, Connor wasn’t budging and Hank was too old to be dealing with a prissy, defensive android “So are there any model matches?”

Connor turned back to the monitor and started explaining, his LED turning back to a steady blue glow.

***

That night, collapsed on the sofa with Sumo warming his feet, Hank thought of the Restricted folder again. After a few rounds at the bar he was steadily sobering up and the TV offered nothing but shitty reruns of shows he didn’t follow and had no interest in.

Back at the police station Connor was acting so damn weird. Was it even possible for androids to keep secrets from humans? Hank wanted to forget the whole thing but his hard-headed intuition leftover from days when he actually cared about his job wouldn’t let him. With a grunt he reached for his phone, half-trapped by the heavy weight on his feet. Sumo glanced at him with sleepy eyes and went back to his nap.

Hank wasn’t that great with his phone but even he knew how to find the latest files that have been shared with his personal account. It didn’t take a lot of digging to find what he was looking for- the connection was established at 15:24 via the CL313248317 connection. After inputting his username and password, Hank was surprised to find that he had full access.

The Restricted folder immediately caught his eye; the thumbnail of his own smiling face hasn’t changed. For a moment Hank’s finger hovered over the picture, overcome by a rush of hesitance or perhaps even guilt. Connor clearly didn’t want him to see this so wouldn’t it be considered an invasion of privacy?

But then Hank remembered who he was dealing with- Connor made it pretty clear that he had no concept of privacy or personal space. That kid was always scanning him, standing too close and giving unwanted advice about shit that didn’t concern him. So why should he feel guilty over this creepy shot Connor took without his permission?

Hank double tapped on the folder and connected the screen with his TV.

There were thousands of files, organized in an unknown pattern. Hank tried to read the titles of the sub-folders but they were a combination of random numbers and symbols. It was only once he started looking at files folder by folder that he was beginning to see a theme in the recorded data.

There were several folders specifically designed to hold animal videos; a small dog following her owner on the sunny street, a fish tank with several exotic fish swimming amongst the water plants, a black cat’s tail moving back and forth as it stared back at Connor from the roof of a building. There were many close-ups of whiskers, fishtails, ears, paws, and fur- wait, Hank recognized that coloring-

“Sumo,” he mumbled and the dog in question grunted in his sleep, too lazy to check on his owner again. 

This must have been when Connor barged into his house for that Eden case. Hank watched with amazement as the recording clearly showed Connor leaning down to pet Sumo. His touch seemed so gentle that the old boy probably hadn’t even felt it. How strange. Why would these videos be in the Restricted folder? Why would Connor keep them a secret from CyberLife?

Other folders were focused on short footage of things that seemed even more banal; streetlight reflected on a wet puddle on the street, first rays of sunrise through the blinds of a window, the sway of trees in the night wind, a perfectly spherical coffee ring stain on a piece of paper- there seemed to be hundreds of these random moments that Connor painstakingly collected. 

Hank was beginning to understand what made this data different. His years as a detective taught him to see patterns and themes in seemingly non-connected events and there was clearly an overlaying theme in all this footage. All these little moments meant something to Connor, something he felt he had to collect. No wonder he didn’t want to share it with Cyberlife- this definitely wasn’t something they programmed their androids to do.

“Not a deviant my ass,” Hank grinned, feeling giddy at finding out his partner’s secret. Turns out Connor was a real boy after all. But this rush of satisfaction proved to be short-lived when he scrolled down and tapped on the next folder.

His own face stared back.

Leaning towards the screen, Hank lost his balance and fell over Sumo, banging his elbow on the floor. Shit, he really looked like a drunken old man laying on the ground like this. Sumo let out a loud annoyed sigh, as if agreeing with the sentiment, and spread himself fully on the carpet. With a curse Hank sat up, his eyes trained on the TV displaying a looping image of his face. 

The Hank in the footage was smiling, animatedly talking with someone off camera. Connor zoomed in on his face until you could see every strand of hair, every pore and wrinkle as Hank continued to joke around. There was no sound.

For the life of him Hank couldn’t remember where or when this took place but from the angle, he would assume that Connor was watching him from the car. Why the hell would he record something like this? Hank dug a bit deeper, trying to find the origins of the recording and noticed the data attached to the file.

One hundred and eighty seven. Connor had replayed this footage one hundred and eighty seven times, the last time being at 5:43 this morning.

“What the fuck.” Hank breathed out, wiping at his face. 

He went to the next video and the next and the next; they were all recording of Hank, some with sound, some muted, some replayed over hundred times, some looped, some zoomed in on random parts of his body. There was footage of his hands preparing coffee, of his lips mouthing the lyrics to a song as he drove, of his fingers brushing back his hair, of his eyes glaring at a bright street light.

Shit, looking into the Restricted folder was such a stupid mistake. Was Connor spying on Hank for Cyberlife? But why would they need information on a washed out middle-aged lieutenant that was one disciplinary process away from losing his badge for good? It made no sense. Besides wasn’t all of this sorted as Restricted data? Cyberlife wouldn’t have any access to any of it. 

No, this was Connor’s private collection.

Hank raised his head to look at the ceiling, his thoughts wandering to the small box wrapped up with dusty toys and a child’s bike in the attic. He was overcome by a crippling rush of anxiety, a familiar feeling which made him long for the warm numbness of alcohol.

Hank exited the folder and turned off the screen connection, engulfing the living room in darkness. He walked towards the kitchen in search of a drink, determined to forget what he just saw.


End file.
